We have feared our own fire much more than that of Fritz.

On August 9, 1918, SSU 647 moved from the front at Toul to the great city of Nancy, the historic center of Lorraine. Two days later, Grant wrote his father in Mankato and described some of the dangers of his work. Throughout the war, he was more candid with his father than his mother.

The ambulance work was dangerous. Not only due to enemy (and friendly) fire, but also because they had to drive at night with no headlights over country roads at a high rate of speed. Accidents happened.


Convois Autos.,
S.S.U. 647,
Par B.C.M.,
France.

Sunday – August 11, 1918

Dear Daddie:-

In your good letter dated July 7 you asked for more experiences. Here’s a recent one in which you noble son took no part whatever:  We were working with a division of rookies fresh from the States--in the trenches for the first time. ‘Twas a pitch black night on a road over which it was reported the many Boche spies were passing every night (this is the way the new boys interpreted the order to stop and examine every person who passed a certain point). The driver of Ambulance #16 was answering a night call along this road when suddenly from behind a clump of bushes directly beside the road there came a flash – crack! Snap! The bullet tore through the body of the car directly over the driver’s head.  He stopped, got out and in his rich Irish brogue shouted, “Hey!  What the hell you doin’ behind that bush?” A rookie guard stepped warily forward with fixed bayonet.  “I challenged you three times; why didn’t you stop?” was his quavering question. “Oh, so you’re a guard are you? Thought you was a bloody Boche. A fine man you are with a gun. Couldn’t even hit your man at 20 feet. I’m going to report you in at headquarters and have you sent into the front lines. It’ll improve your shooting.” With that he climbed back into his car and disappeared in the darkness. He wasn’t even stopped at this point on this return trip. He had “buffaloed” the rookie. But he was shot at and very nearly hit by an unseen and unheard man. Instead of reporting it as he should have done he came back laughing about what “poor shots these rookies are anyway.”

Here’s my point, Dad: it’s an actual fact that while working with these green divisions, as we have been during the last four months, we have feared our own fire much more than that of Fritz. If Fritz gets you in an ambulance it’s more luck (for him) than good shooting whereas if a guard misses you it’s darn poor shooting. At night it is doubly dangerous because neither the guard nor you can see anything distinctly enough to be sure of one another. In a Ford Ambulance it is difficult enough to hear your own thoughts to say nothing of hearing a guard challenging you from behind a tree or stone wall. It is very exasperating to be stopped by a green guard who doesn’t know his business and have to talk the whole thing over with him when you are answering an emergency call somewhere. Some have orders to stop everything and hold them until the necessary pass-word is given. (We very seldom use pass-words in an ambulance section.) When we get caught this way we have to go with the guard or corporal of the guard to his commanding officer and tell our story all over again. If the commanding officer is green, as is often the case, he is quite apt to be afraid to take the responsibility of letting us pass so we have to find his commanding officer, etc. All this time the emergency patients are waiting.

Night driving over busy roads in an ambulance is treacherous enough without the guards and M.P.s making it more so. One dark night an M.P. dashed into our dressing station up front, white in the face and trembling like a leaf. “They shot me! They shot me! They shot me!” he kept screaming. The doctor dressed his hand which a bullet had grazed and finally got his story. Two batteries of light field-pieces were moving in. They had been stopped by this M.P. and closely questioned. ‘Twas on a bad corner and the artillery boys resented the wait. They started on a run again and as the last caisson was passing a rider had taken a chance shot at the M.P.  This is how we all love them. They’re a bloody nuisance but, I guess, an indispensable one.

Mother spoke of the terrors of night driving in her last letter. It really isn’t so bad after one becomes accustomed to it. It is nowhere near as bad as if you were to take the car out on some dark night and try driving around Horse-shoe Bend without lights. In the first place everything is dark. There are no passing lights to blind us. Then at night over here everything hugs the right side of the road so that in passing a train of stuff going up our greatest danger is in meeting something coming down on a road too narrow for three vehicles abreast. Of course the majority of night accidents on the road happen while passing traffic. This is where we lose out. Our cars are too light to stand the messaging of a 5-ton truck or gun-carriage.

After we have worked awhile with a division we teach them a code of signals to be used on the road at night. Each driver carries a whistle and it doesn’t take long to teach them how to use them. It is also possible to work up a code of signals with the M.P.s after they have had a bit of experience.

But with all these modern conveniences night driving on the darkest nights is very nerve-wearing on a driver. The man who doesn’t know the road over which he is driving is out of luck. We had a sad instance of this not long ago when one of the new boys, sent to us to increase our number to full strength, ran his car into a tree while passing a truck on a dark road and killed a top-sergeant who was riding on the front seat with him. He didn’t know the road well enough to know that this was a particularly dangerous spot.

Last Friday we moved from where we were--temporarily attached to the last division we worked with on the old front. We are now in a big auto park laid up for repairs for a week or so. It is uncertain where we will go from here but it isn’t likely that we will return to the same front and there being very little choice of location and big demand for men further west leads us to believe that another week will find us up where the “big stuff” is going on. We are all hoping we will to up there because it would be hard to go back to the States and admit that 647 played no part in the Great American action up there. I know you will be glad too to know that we are up where the Boche are getting hell and where the Americans are putting in their first big licks.

Our Lieutenant is a whirlwind. He got a piano for us which we carry everywhere. Now he wants to buy musical instruments of all kinds for a jazz band. We have a great deal of sport together and enjoy our vacations tremendously.

W. D. Willard (1867-1952)

Dad, you spoke of sending me money if I wanted any. Do you remember that last 100 or 150 francs you sent me? I put that in the Morgan Harjes bank in Paris to be used on a rainy day, so to speak. That day came when we started on permission. The 275 francs which I had in the bank at the time came in most handy and I should like that much there again for my next permission which ought to come along in about four months. Any money which you can spare me would be put right into another permission fund and would be deeply appreciated.

Have received three packages of the note-book paper I asked for and now have a great sufficiency. Thank you much.

Our mail has been delayed during our movement but hope to hear from you soon.

Love to all,
Grant.